Rants and Other Things: Tourist (3.4.12)

My day started officially when I walked out of my apartment building and walked in the direction of one of the world's tallest buildings and one of the most spectacular buildings ever, the Empire State Building. We've already gotten out CityPasses so we got to skip the almost non-existent line outside (LOL, because we went at like 10:05 and that place opened at 10). BUT, we walked into the building, there was a line. Joy. But the line was pretty fast-moving so that was good, I guess. K, gonna skip the boring part about the line, security and elevators and I'll get to the main part. The observatory. The 'main' observatory is on the 86th floor where I went and there's a higher observatory on the 102nd floor but I didn't go to that. It was super cold due to the strong winds outside. Ahh, I loved it but my fingers were numb, felt like they were going to fall off and felt like frozen fish sticks. I didn't care, I needed good photos and I wanted to take New York City in.

The view was breathtaking. Central Park, the Hudson River, the Chrysler Building, 1st Avenue, THE WHOLE OF MANHATTAN. I don't know what else to say. The view was just amazing. I'll put up a few pictures. After the Empire State Building, we went over to THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. That place is not your average museum. It's located on 5th Ave and E82 Street. The building's architecture left me flabbergasted. I don't know what to say about it. It was just so amazing.

Now, the MET isn't just a museum, it's the Met. Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Ancient Asia, Ancient Egypt, Modern Art, Contemporary Art, European Sculptures, Medieval England, Medieval France, Byzantine Time, ahh everything. I didn't know where to start. But we did anyways. At the Ancient Rome/Greece section. The marble sculptures were very, very well preserved and very pretty. Sure, hands, heads and sadly some penises were broken off but they just added to the history element. I love these types of art, I don't know why. They didn't just have sculptures of people, they also had pieces of remarkable buildings then and I found it absolutely fascinating. Go ahead, call me a nerd.

(Okay, I'm gonna give a quick summary of everywhere I went in the MET so if you don't want to be bored skip to where I tell you to stop. You'll know where because ~~I'll exclaim STOP HERE out of your speakers~~ I'll type 'stop')

Ancient Rome/Greece

I saw a sculpture of Aphrodite/Venus, Hercules, some imperial members and some pieces of some Ancient Roman buildings. They were all really well crafted and preserved.

Ancient Egypt

I basically saw some mummies and some of Cleopatra's jewelry. No big deal. The mummies were really fascinating because the thought of having a mummified dead body in front of you in a clear, glass case was just so...scary yet great at the same time. There were two types of mummies that I saw. 1. The normal mummy - a wooden painted case. 2. The mummy when the Romans ruled Egypt - a wooden painted case but instead of a moulded face, a portrait of the deceased's face was slotted in.

Ancient Asia

My mom told me that most of the pieces on display in the China section were actually smuggled out of China. They weren't smuggled out by the museum. They were smuggled int he 19th/20th century. For example, some of them were smuggled out by Chiang Kai Shek when he escaped China and collectors bought the art pieces off of him. I know right, isn't it saaa cool. Oh, and also, I saw this HUGE and I mean HUGE painting of the Buddha of Medicine, which was about 40ft wide and at lest 15ft tall. It was painted on clay and the thing was actually cracked at some parts but they were restored and pieces back together. WOW.

Contemporary Art

I love contemporary art and this section of the Met just added more reasons as to why I love this genre of art. Ahh, the edginess of it all. I saw more of Andy Warhol's great pop art pieces and I was still in awe of it all. I saw 'Nine Jackies', which was basically a pop art piece of Jackie O, the widow of JFK. Another one was a huge portrait of 'Mao' that was pop art-ised. As much as I don't know how I feel about Mao, the piece was great. I've really come to love Andy Warhol's work. They're so colorful and funky. Not to mention, what he did with Marilyn Monroe's shots were amazing. Lastly, my favorite piece in the Contemporary Art section was this wall art piece. It was basically a few panels of basic colors arranged in such a way that it was a spectrum. Actually the colors were very, very shout-able. Idk, something about them that's just so appealing. I love the piece regardless of it being so simple. Simplicity. Simple but effective.

STOP

After the Met, we hailed a cab and went to 5th Avenue where Barneys was and we walked around Barneys but bought nothing. We then walked over to DKNY where I got a jumpsuit ahhh. But after that, we came home and did nothing. It was 6-ish but oh well.